Throughout the case studies on the Philippines, it is found that the economic growth has actually strengthened the gender inequality situation within the countries. This page is to talk about how Philippine female suffered from the gender inequality.

 

      The huge influx of money brought as remittance by the female overseas workers do brings an economic spring to the country. However, at the same time, this does not bring an improvement to the situation of gender inequality in the country. Instead, it is a facilitator that even strengthened the gender inequality.

       

       Even though the female overseas workers need to go out to work as to earn a living for the family, the household burden and the responsibility to nurture the children is still regarded as the women’s job by the majority of the Philippines. As a result, these female have to bear double burden, both inside and outside their home. The traditional coping mechanism of the workers and the poor is the safety net of family relations but this unduly depends largely on the unpaid work of women. The double burden means women are exploited as cheap labour in the factories and then used as unpaid workers in the home.(Solidarity Philippines Australia Network, 2009)

    

        Yet the government chooses to turn a blind eye on the heavy burden on the shoulder of those females. In fact it is making big fuss out of a false claim that “Pilar” has overtaken “Pepe”, that Filipino women have surpassed men in terms of development. A presumptuous government study claims that women have gone beyond men in terms of health, education, and income, and that sooner or later it will be men who will call for equality and demand its own ‘National Men’s Month’.(Solidarity Philippines Australia Network, 2009)

 

      This study asserts women have gained higher achievements than men in all three dimensions as indicated by the higher than one levels of Gender Equality Ratio or GER for health (1.0248), education (1.0583) and income (1.2299) in 2003. However, in fact, the advantage of women in the income dimension grew bigger as the GER in income increased from 1.1170 to 1.2299. This is probably one of the reasons why the theme of the government’s commemoration of Women’s Month is “Babae, Yaman ka ng Bayan!” (Women, You are the Wealth of the Nation!)(Solidarity Philippines Australia Network, 2009)

 

        The truth is that the study merely highlights women’s

achievements in those areas but it hides the bigger picture

of the state of inequality between men and women in the

Philippines. It also contains chauvinist innuendos, or a sexist

joke at its worst, by challenging the egos of men that they are

outperformed by women. This exposes the fact that the

government hardly understands the essence of women’s

struggle for equality. It is estimated that around 51.4% of

Filipino women are inactive in the labor force compared to

the 78.9% labor force participation rate for men.

(Fiona, 2012; Solidarity Philippines Australia Network, 2009)

 

         Even the political participation of women is raised in the

recent years and the first women president is being elected, the

situation is still not improved. The females who can climb up to

the peak of the pyramid and obtain great power did not pay

much effort in handling the demand from the majority of females

who are suffering.

 

        It is observed that many protests are initiated in the past decade calling for attention to a serier of issues affecting women, such as poverty, double burdens and reproductive rights, even during the term of the elected women president.